"Stakes" are High

As winter approaches, the weather has become less desirable and added more management to our garden plot. The rain has kept us from getting out there as often but also been damaging our plants. When the rain splashes sand up on the developing fruits it causes abrasions. The moisture also can lead to disease, but thankfully we haven't seen any of that yet.

Recent wind and rain also caused a lot of damage. Many bean plants were found laying on the ground. Though stood them back upright, all of the beans that were touching the ground got some kind of insect damage to them. Our tomatoes however were hit the worst. The cages we used at the beginning of the season were too small for our indeterminate varieties and did not provide enough support. Several of the plants were found fallen over as well. We used stakes and bamboo poles to give them the support we should have given them all along. Some of the plants that didn't fall still had bending limbs so we added support for them too. Hopefully we fixed them all in time prevent permanent damage.

Fallen tomato plants.

Abrasions and damage from the plant falling. Also split fruit.

Fallen/damaged beans and beans with insect damage.

Properly staked tomato plants.

First Fruits

Bell Pepper

New Tomatoes

First Harvest

Bush Beans

It has been about six weeks since we planted the first of our vegetables and we are seeing fruit! We even had a small harvest of green beans. In addition, we will plan to harvest two peppers this upcoming week. Even though they could get bigger, we are hoping that by taking them off now, the others will get larger faster. Our green beans are also doing quite well. We are trying to focus on quality. We want them at a long, and uniform size, but we also want to make sure that they do not get over mature and tough.

Insects

       We have come into several problems with insects on our crops. Our squash plants are being eaten by something. We have looked all over for caterpillars or some other kind of pest, but have not been able to find the culprit. Sadly, one of the six squash we planted died entirely. Another lost its blossoms. Mary and I have tried to do some research on the damage, but it's rather generic and we have had no luck figuring out what kind of insect is doing the damage. We are going to treat our plants with a general pesticide in hopes of saving the remainder.

       We are having similar problems with our carrots. Carrots have a slow germination rate. In addition, we had a relatively low success with germination and we did not have a very high percentage. In addition, a few of them have dropped their tops. They seem to be healthy until the tops just break off. Once again, it is hard to figure out what actually is causing the damage. Several things have the ability to do that, including soil pests and poor drainage. Our soil is well draining and with good nutrition the carrots should be able to withstand a marginal amount of pest damage.
 
    Another pest that is present throughout our entire garden plot is fire ants. They are not only causing damage to the foliage and roots, but they make it very unpleasant to work in the garden. We spread corn grits near the ant hills as an organic way to manage them. Already we have seen a decrease in the ant population.
 The last insect we have found present in our garden is actually beneficial. There are many different species of bees present in the garden. They have been actively pollinating our beans and tomatoes giving us a good crop yield so far. This picture however shows bees pollinating weed flowers in our plot. We are still have our work cut out for us maintaining the weeds.